Judge Orders DACA To Be Restored For The First Time Since 2017

On Friday, a federal judge ordered the full restoration of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, allowing new applications for the first time since Trump tried to end the program in 2017.

Judge Nicholas Garaufis of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn ruled that the Trump administration must restore the Obama-era program that provides deportation protections to immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. Garaufis instructed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security that a public notice must be posted by Monday declaring that the department will now accept and DACA petitions from those who are not already enrolled in it. This ruling will open the door for approximately one million undocumented immigrant teens and young adults to apply for the program. To be eligible, an applicant cannot have any serious criminal convictions and must have arrived in the U.S before the age of 16. The applicant must also prove that they have been living in the country since 2007 and earning an American high school diploma, a GED, or serving in the military. 

Supporters of DACA, including Karen Tumlin, who is one of the lawyers defending the program’s beneficiaries and prospective applicants, and the director of the Justice Action Center,  praised the court’s decision to proceed with this vital initiative. Tumlin also slammed the Trump administration and demanded that they halt “its attacks on immigrant youth today instead of continuing its losing courtroom battle during the last days of the administration.”

She also added, “Today’s ruling opens the door for more than one million immigrant youth who have been unfairly denied their chance to apply for DACA and secure their future in this country. Our brave plaintiffs have said from the beginning of this lawsuit that their home is here, and the court rightly recognized that today.”

In his ruling, Garaufis also ordered officials to give two-year work permits to approved applicants instead of the one-year permit proposed by Trump.

Over three years ago, in September 2017, the Trump administration announced that they wanted to end DACA, whose applicants have been widely nicknamed the “Dreamers.” At the time, they claimed that the program represented an overreach of executive authority, according to CBS News.  Several federal courts halted the program’s termination before the Supreme Court ruled in June that attempting to end the program violated federal administrative law.

This victory is just the latest win for DACA. In November, Garaufis ruled that acting DHS secretary Chad Wolf did not have the authority to close DACA to new applicants or shorten the work permits’ validity period.